Contextual Compliance: Situational and Subjective Cost-Benefit Decisions about Pesticides by Chinese Farmers

This article analyzes how cost-benefit calculation influences compliance with pesticide regulation by Chinese farmers. Building on a study including 150 farmers and experts, it studies how operational costs and benefits and deterrence affect compliance. Moreover, it studies what variation in cost-benefit perceptions there are with different types of rules, farms, and villages. It finds that, in this context, cost-benefit calculation matters for compliance; with operational costs and benefits being more clearly related to compliant behavior than deterrence. It highlights that perceptions about costs and benefits are situational and vary along the type of legal rule and the type of regulated actor. It also shows that such perceptions are individually subjective, as even with similar rules and similar types of actors, perceptions vary. The paper concludes by stating expectations on how the situational and subjective nature of cost-benefit calculation can inform regulators seeking to enhance compliance

China\u27s War on Graft: Politico-Legal Campaigns Against Corruption in China and Their Similarities to the Legal Reactions to Crisis in the U.S.

In the last two decades, China organized political campaigns to fight corruption. Such campaigns led to an increased prosecution of high-profile cases involving high-level officials. Perceived corruption in China, however, has not decreased as a result, because the campaigns failed to address widespread lower-level incidents. China\u27s political campaigns against corruption—the politico-legal campaigns—are an example of the use of political methods to enhance the legal system. China has organized several politico-legal campaigns to promote public awareness of legal issues and combat crimes, including illegal drug trade, copyright infringements, and environmental violations. The Chinese politico-legal campaigns show that China needs its effective laws to support government policies. A comparative analysis shows that there is a similar need for effective laws in the United States, especially in times of crises. Such effective laws usually come at the cost of sacrificing the formal-rational legal limits on governmental actions. Now that China is trying to establish the rule of law and the U.S. still faces crises related to drugs, crime, and terrorism, both countries face similar challenges in balancing their effective laws with the rule of law principle, and may learn from each other\u27s experience

Pollution Regulation in Development. System Design, Compliance and Enforcement

Over the last decades, some non-OECD countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, India and China have been rapidly industrializing. While this has had positive effects on economic growth, it has also caused pollution with severe effects . In response to the new pollution threat, most of the industrializing economies have installed pollution prevention and control regulations, and implementing institutions. In practice, however, the regulations often fail to achieve the desired results. This Research and Policy Note explains why the regulation of pollution in these countries is so difficult

Access to Justice and Legal Empowerment. Making the Poor Central in Legal Development Co-operation

Reforms to improve poor people’s access to justice and to promote their legal empowerment comprise the latest trend in legal development cooperation. This volume answers a number of basic questions about this new trend, such as access to justice and legal empowerment entail and its importance; the obstacles the poor and marginalised face in seeking justice and empowerment through the legal system; and the reforms proposed by these approaches to legal development co-operation. Furthermore, it outlines important considerations for policy-makers concerning access to justice and legal empowerment reforms

Symmetric and asymmetric motivations for compliance and violation: A crisp set qualitative comparative analysis of Chinese farmers

This article applies crisp set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) to gain insight into the compliance motivations and behaviors of 101 Chinese farmers. It seeks to understand how eight motivations (capacity to comply, legal knowledge, deterrent effect of sanctions, cost-benefit analysis, descriptive social norms, morals, general duty to obey, and procedural justice) combine in compliant and non-compliant behavior, and whether there is only one combination of motivations or several that lead to compliance and non-compliance. It illustrates how csQCA assists in making visible and analyzing situations of interacting compliance motivations (conjunctural causality) and situations where different combinations of motivations result in similar compliance behavior (equifinality). It identifies symmetrical and non-symmetrical relationships between specific compliance motivations and compliance behaviors - indicating that motivations for non-compliance are not necessarily the opposite of those for compliance. This non-symmetry may logically be explained because deterrence plays a different role in compliance decisions than in non-compliance decisions. The article concludes by highlighting the relevance of such insights for theorizing on compliance and for law enforcement, and the limitations of the method applied

Pollution regulation in development : system design, compliance, and enforcement

Over the last decades, some non-oeCD countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, India and China have been rapidly industrializing. While this has had positive effects on economic growth, it has also caused pollution with severe effects on the natural environment, human health, and global climate change. In response to the new pollution threat, most of the industrializing economies have installed pollution prevention and control regulations, and implementing institutions. In practice, however, the regulations often fail to achieve the desired results. Violations of the law remain pervasive, and enforcement reactions against violations of the law are often ineffective. This Research and Policy Note explains why the regulation of pollution in these countries is so difficult, by looking at several aspects of pollution regulation frameworks, for instance the obstacles to effective law enforcement, effective enforcement strategies in creating compliance in industrializing economies, and the role of local communities, markets and politics

Access to justice and legal empowerment : making the poor central in legal development co-operation

How law can aid development has been the focus of much recent discussion among development workers, scholars and policy makers. Indeed, reforms to improve poor people's access to justice and to promote their legal empowerment comprise the latest trend in legal development cooperation. This volume answers a number of basic questions about this new trend, such as access to justice and legal empowerment entail and its importance; the obstacles the poor and marginalised face in seeking justice and empowerment through the legal system; and the reforms proposed by these approaches to legal development co-operation. Furthermore, it outlines important considerations for policymakers concerning access to justice and legal empowerment reform

The Exogenous Rule of Law: Comparative Evidence about the General Duty to Obey the Law Amongst Law Students

Van Rooij will also draw from qualitative data from lawyers in China and the Netherlands as well as from farmers in China

Critical Fluctuations as an Early-Warning Signal for Sudden Gains and Losses in Patients Receiving Psychotherapy for Mood Disorders

Whereas sudden gains and losses (large shifts in symptom severity) in patients receiving psychotherapy appear abrupt and hence may seem unexpected, hypotheses from complex-systems theory suggest that sudden gains and losses are actually preceded by certain early-warning signals (EWSs). We tested whether EWSs in patients' daily self-ratings of the psychotherapeutic process predicted future sudden gains and losses. Data were collected from 328 patients receiving psychotherapy for mood disorders who completed daily self-ratings about their therapeutic process using the Therapy Process Questionnaire (TPQ). Sudden gains and losses were classified from the Problem Intensity scale of the TPQ. The other items of the TPQ were used to compute the EWSs. EWSs predicted an increased probability for sudden gains and losses in a 4-day predictive window. These results show that EWSs can be used for real-time prediction of sudden gains and losses in clinical practice

Think twice before running! Bank runs and cognitive abilities

We assess the effect of cognitive abilities on withdrawal decisions in a bank-run game. In our setup, depositors choose sequentially between withdrawing or keeping their funds deposited in a common bank. Depositors may observe previous decisions depending on the information structure. Theoretically, the last depositor in the sequence of decisions has a dominant strategy and should always keep the funds deposited, regardless of what she observes (if anything). Recognizing the dominant strategy, however, is not always straightforward. If there exists strategic uncertainty (e.g., if the last depositor has no information regarding the decisions of predecessors), then the identification of the dominant strategy is more difficult than in a situation with no strategic uncertainty (e.g., the last depositor is informed about all previous decisions). We find that cognitive abilities, as measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), predict withdrawals in the presence of strategic uncertainty (participants with stronger abilities tend to iden- tify the dominant strategy more easily) but that the CRT does not predict behavior when strategic uncertainty is absent (JEL Class.: C91, D03, D8, G02, J16